Netflix show Wednesday breaks records 

Ella Aikens ‘23, Business and Ad Manager

In November of 2022, Netflix released Wednesday with Jenna Ortega as the lead. Shortly after its debut, the show grossed major viewership as it reported 34.2 million hours watched in its first five days and 411.3 million total the following week on the streaming platform. 

As a spin-off of the classic film, The Addams Family, Wednesday begins as the eldest Addams child navigates a normal high school before finding her brother, Pugsley, tied up in a locker. Upon her discovery, she receives some psychic visions that show who put her brother into the locker and then she take the piranhas to the pool where his bullies were, an event which leads to her expulsion. Her parents then decide to enroll Wednesday in Nevermore Academy, a school her parents used to attend for supernatural children.

From there on out, the show mainly consists of Wednesday trying to figure out what is giving her the power to see these visions and why. There is also some romantic interaction between Wednesday and the two male leads . The love triangle between Wednesday Addams, Xavier, and Bianca is messy. The first two episodes of Wednesday showed off the slow-burning crush between Wednesday and Xavier. He finally made it clear that he was interested in her romantically, but she wasn’t the easiest person for him to open up to. Leading to a major plot twist in the end.

Leading into the fourth episode of the shwow, Wednesday performed a dance—one that was self-choreographed by Ortega herself—at her school’s Rave ‘N Dance. Her performance quickly became an online sensation as people noted its uniqueness. On TikTok, thousands of people were seen posting themselves doing the dance.

Overall, the show has proven itself to be a huge success after it beat out the hit Netflix original Stranger Things to score the most viewing time in a single week for an English-language series on Netflix. The eight-episode show is now ranked third in the streaming platform’s all time ranking of English language shows totaling 752.52 million hours viewed. Jenna Ortaga was also  nominated for a Golden Globe but unfortunately did not win.